


the torment of existence weighed against the horror of nonbeing

by quixxotique (crownlessliestheking)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Timeline (Homestuck), And ergo mentions of suicide (which will have the appropriate chapter warnings), Angst, Character Development, Character Study, Depression, Dirk's Heart Powers, Discussions of death, Eventual Happy Ending, Friendship, GAME OVER Timeline (Homestuck), Heavy Themes, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, John's Retcon Powers, Loneliness, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Metaphysics?, Nightmares, Not Canon Compliant - The Homestuck Epilogues, Now with a Spotify Playlist, Overly Philosophical Discussions, Post-Game, Self-Loathing, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Character Death (Mentioned- Canon Compliant with [S] Collide), The Void, You've met Brain Ghost Dirk...now get ready for Void Ghost Dirk, mild horror themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/quixxotique
Summary: On the very edges of Paradox Space, at the border of unreality at the shattered remnants of a dead-end timeline, where The Void has settled in comfortably, a not-quite dreamer and a not-quite ghost meet. Surprisingly, they get along.Alternatively: Google, how do you tell someone that you might be falling in love with them because you keep accidentally (and now not so accidentally) meeting up with their only-sometimes-alternate/splinter self that's stranded in the Void?
Relationships: John Egbert & Dirk Strider, John Egbert/Dirk Strider
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59





	the torment of existence weighed against the horror of nonbeing

**Author's Note:**

> This is not what I thought I'd be writing, and yet here we are. Inspiration taken partially from 'Looking Into the Heart of Light' by lastdream, and 'a thousand years', which. I don't remember who wrote it and it's orphaned now, so. 
> 
> I'm just dipping my toes into a little DirkJohn the best way I know how. Through a healthy dose of angst and internal rambling on both sides as I get a feel for these dudes. 
> 
> Fic title is the song of the same name; chapter titles are lines from TS Eliot's The Wasteland. My second favorite poem, these days.

_You could say that I'm lost_ _  
Searching around to find my own soul  
Digging under my skin  
Wearing your clothes just to know that I'm home_

-Mayday Parade

* * *

Spring on Earth C announces itself as it always does- with a snap of warm, wet weather, with the heads of flowers tentatively pushing through the damp earth, with your nose blocked and sinuses rebelling every time you so much as think about going outside- which you’ll admit isn’t all that often, but still.

It’s your least favorite season. March is tolerable, because the cold had lingered, back before. The air had been crisp if damp, the skies still a slate-grey from winter, with the wan sun only just peeking out. But April- no.

You don’t like April. You’ve never really liked April, and it’s only gotten worse.

Earth C is warmer, your hayfever kicked in even though you’ve been pretty much remaining inside to avoid the whole pollen deal- and isn’t that a joke, that a god could have hayfever? Just about as funny as two of them having a peanut allergy, you have to admit, even if you don’t even muster up so much as a chuckle from it. Maybe that’s something Dave’d call ironic? You’re not really sure, for all that you have a _slightly_ better grasp on what irony is than when you were thirteen. At least, you think you should! That was, what, twelve years ago? You definitely do.

You make yourself sit up in bed and everything, and you think it’s probably morning? You don’t have a clock in your room. You do have these thick blackout curtains so the sun _doesn’t_ wake you up every single morning at the asscrack of dawn, which would be kind of awful. You think they’re probably also the kind that would block out noise, but the place you’ve chosen to live (which was basically just a bit of Can Town in the beginning) is honestly pretty quiet so you don’t really need that. You don’t actually think that anyone really knows it’s _you_ who lives here? Well, you think that’s probably not very likely, so if they do they’re at least minding their own business about it.

You’re not ashamed to admit that you’ve kind of faded into obscurity. Mostly because you’ve done a pretty good job of it! It takes a lot for a god to disappear, really, especially ones who knows people as nosy as you do.

And today, you think, you’re almost thankful for it. The sun rose on April 13th and you weren’t awake to see it which is for the best, and you hate yourself a little bit for wishing that it hadn’t. Never mind that your curtains are drawn tightly shut, so not even a wisp of its light can enter your room. Never mind that you know- you _know_ \- Jane will have messaged you to wish you a Happy birthday (to the both of us!) Hoo hoo hoo :B, and then also probably invited you to dinner with her and her Dad. Who isn’t your Dad, but who’s just close enough that it felt really weird to look at him at all and sometimes made you feel sick right down to your stomach.

Jane tries hard, you think, even if she doesn’t really get it, and you tell yourself that you’ll message her later. You mean it.

None of the others really wish you a happy birthday- at least, not on the day itself. And honestly? You’re pretty thankful for that. You remember snapping at Rose on your second year here that no, it wasn’t a happy day, actually, can you please not?, and, well. She didn’t, even if you went and apologized and felt terrible afterwards, and you still kind of do, about that specifically. They wait until May to send you any messages about it, and you’re not sure what you said that she picked up on to make them give you that kind of a wide berth, but it’s good. Probably.

It’s not really a surprise to them that you don’t want to celebrate your birthday at all, and you hadn’t really liked it all that much before, either. No, not before. Before. Yeah, there we go. Capital B Before, because that’s how it is for all of you who made it, isn’t it. Before the Game, and now After the Game.

~~Except it doesn’t really feel like you’re in _After_ , not now, maybe not ever. It’s been years and you’re still waiting to wake up and know that things are fine and they’re going to stay fine and that things are better and that it’s over, Over with a Capital O. Your whole other- thing- doesn’t really help the situation, but that’s a whole other deal that you usually try not to think too hard about. Like now. You think that everyone else is doing so much better here than you are, that they’ve all just settled down and found their families or made other families and you’re just, here, by yourself, because you’re dumb and still missing a world that you know you helped end. You wish you’d never played the Game, but you also know that you probably didn’t ever have a choice about it. Not with how things turned out. ~~

Sometimes, when things are really bad, you wish you’d never won the Game.

You decide that you don’t want to get out of bed just yet, but you also don’t want to pick up your phone or your computer, because your shared birthday with Jane is also somehow some kind of holiday and you don’t know whether that’s CrockerCorp Company Business or just plain god stuff, but you don’t want to deal with it either.

You do, however, have a portable DVD player, the real old kind Dave made fun of you for when he used to come over, and you get that booted up. Ghostbusters is already in there, and you’re okay rewatching it, so you turn the volume all the way up until the jangly tune to the theme crowds out any noise from inside, or outside, and all the thoughts in your head.

And when you drift into sleep again somewhere in the middle of the movie, you don’t even really notice it.

* * *

You don’t know where you are, and the only thing you can say is that you’re really fucking disoriented about it.

~~For a single, glorious moment, you don’t know _who_ you are, only that you _are_ , and it’s so unfamiliar but so goddamn good you feel like you could fucking cry.~~

~~You exist, and that is enough.~~

But not for too long, of course. Your aspect is Self, as Prince of Heart, you can never escape it for long. Your name is Dirk Strider. A Dirk Strider, not _the_ Dirk Strider, as it happens. That privilege isn’t yours anymore, if it ever was- and you’re still debating that internally. It’s exhausting, but what else is there to do?

The darkness presses in close around you, with something uncomfortably like awareness.

Death’s other kingdom is something uncomfortably similar to life, and you shudder at it.

You look down at your hands, the way your fingers flicker in and out of existence, but the nausea at the thought of such erasure, such oblivion, doesn’t come.

You exist, and that’s- well. That sure is something.

You look around, and you immediately wish you hadn’t, because you now know which specific Dirk Strider you are, and the weight of it is crushing. Just like the quote from that proverbial video game, you can feel your sins crawling right on your back.

You know exactly what you did here- or, more accurately, what you didn’t do.

You failed. You didn’t win, and everyone died, and you should’ve done more to stop it, but you didn’t. You were too busy trying to get back to help, when you shouldn’t have let yourself be sent away to begin with. You were supposed to be better than that.

You curl in on yourself, even if it doesn’t help. Your touch is ghost-light in the way that lets you know that you’re intangible, and your stomach heaves a little at the thought of how long you’ve been here, drifting in and out of existence. So much as you actually do have a stomach, anyway.

Even if you close your eyes, it doesn’t matter. It’s dark, all around you. Even if you try and talk to yourself, you can’t, your voice nothing but a strangled whisper that dies in your throat and refuses to spit out even the weakest of beats.

It’s so quiet it’s suffocating. You don’t even remember what the ocean sounds like, and it’s been with you for sixteen years. Had been with you. This you, too. You hold yourself tighter, and then shudder when you feel your arms phase _right through your abdomen oh fuck oh god there’s nothing there, you’re nothing_ before you get yourself to calm down.

You aren’t nothing. Not now, anyway. You’re Dirk Strider, and you always have been. A Dirk Strider, not The Dirk Strider, but that’s good enough for now. You know that no version of you, however shitty, would let this get to them for too long.

So you straighten up instead, and force yourself to look around. You’ve seen this before, this landscape of nothingness that you drift through without so much as even a dreambubble to cross your path. You know that the chances of one doing so are infinitesimally small, even less so to coincide for the strange occasions where you’re actually extant, but you admit you wish they were still around.

Hope’s never been your thing, though, and something in your chest twists bittercold and harsh at the thought.

You flip onto your back instead, and let the abyss stare into you. Or through you. Nietzsche would be shitting his fancy pants right about now, if he got a load of what your existence. Temporary existence. Shit, man, are you Schrodinger’s Dirk?

“That just sounds dirty,” you murmur to yourself, and you’re shocked to find that you actually are kind of amused by what has to be the shittiest joke you’ve ever made. Schrodinger’s Dirk, yeah, that’s a hell of a euphemism and also a comment on your elusive nature in general. It’s a damn shame you don’t have an audience for this one, but you can nearly here the canned sitcom laughter on playback courtesy of your brain, even if it’s faint. You’re here all week, thanks folks.

“What does?” comes a voice from approximately a foot away, and if there was anything solid around to jump off of, you’re pretty sure you’d be five feet in the air thanks to sheer fucking surprise.

“What?” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth, your hand already reaching for a sword that isn’t there. So eloquent. But you think that your lack of composure might be forgiveable because there’s a whole, entire person standing in front of you, haloed in a blue light, and _you know who they are._

“What sounds dirty?” says John fucking Egbert, who is somehow here even though he has no right to be, and it’s the first human voice you’ve heard in ages

(except it’s not you spoke to Dave just two days ago didn’t you or did you but you haven’t met Dave here no matter how bad you wanted to except- _oh_ , you think, _that’s the real Dirk_ _remembering_ )

It’s also the last human voice you’d ever heard, and the memory hits you, ugly and cloying.

“Nothing. Just- a shitty joke,” you rasp out, and you see him flinch at the sound of your voice, all rasped out and distorted. You wonder if you opened your mouth wider, whether or not pixels would fall out of it, little pieces of you rendered into shitty square artefacts. You think it might be fitting, given your Bro’s visual atrocities. You remember the Statues of Libelty with an ache so sharp it hurts.

You remember- a lot more, actually.

“Oh,” he says, his brow furrowed. “That’s normally what I do. Or so I hear! I don’t think my jokes are _that_ bad, and apparently I made a very good comedian in another timeline.”

“In mine, actually. In- everything after the Scratch,” you say automatically. “John Crocker. You were Jane’s grandfather, the adopted son of the legendary Colonel Sassacre, and the more nefarious Betty Crocker. I saw some of the old tapes, my Bro kept them saved. You _were_ kind of funny.”

“What, only kind of?” he asks, his head tilting to the side in a gesture that’s more Jane than it is Jake, but still sends a fresh pang through you, like a sword twisting through your chest. You didn’t save either of them, here.

“You also had a mustache,” you tell him instead, and focus instead on how your nails dig into your palms. It hurts, actual, physical pain, and that’s a novelty.

“I bet it was era appropriate,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.

You register, belatedly, that he’s not in his godtier duds. You also register that he’s a little broader than before, that he’s older, that there’s scruff on his face and his hair is longer and more unkempt and he’s- older, if sadder around the corners of his eyes.

“You- did you win?” you blurt out, and then some distant part of you thrums with the knowledge that yes, you did on some timeline, but you don’t know if _this_ is the John from that one. “I saw you. I don’t know how long ago, I don’t know if it’s this particular version of you, or if you’d even remember. You looked like you were going to fix everything. Did you?”

You don’t realize that this is apparently a minefield of a question, at least not until his whole face does something complicated, rearranging into a hell of a frown.

“We won,” he finally says, and it strikes you for a second how bitter he sounds. You’re happy for a second, though. To know that he isn’t still knocking about dead timelines, trying to fix something he can’t. You’re happy that it _worked_ , that some version of you all get to live, because you don’t think he’d have called it a victory if anyone had died. You know you wouldn’t.

(You haven’t spoken to John before, not really. Not alone. He’s been around you, and you’ve been around him, been roped together into the same group conversations and group chats that you both put on mute, although you know you’re more active on the latter than he is by far. So the bitterness resonates with you on both chords.)

“And I do remember you,” he adds, his expression smoothing out a little. He’s looking at you with wide blue eyes and something you suspect is pity. It burns. “You said- that you’d failed. And then kind of disappeared, so I’d thought-,” John breaks off, obviously embarrassed to be wrong.

“It’s fine,” you say. “I did. I’ve been- in and out. There’s not a particularly good way to describe it, maybe latent Heart powers kicking in, as if they’ve ever done anything for self-preservation, when it comes to me. Or maybe it’s the godtier thing, where I can’t actually die, so I eventually reassemble from void dust or whatever, every so often.”

(Or maybe it’s an awareness that’s yours but a different you slotting into place as that you dreams, flitting through splinters and timelines and dismissing them as trauma from a Game that tried its best to destroy you. You’ve always been a vivid dreamer, though. It’s why you don’t sleep.)

“Dude. That sounds pretty awful,” he tells you, completely serious and clearly feeling some type of upset about it.

“Well. When you put it like that, yeah,” you say, suddenly defensive. It’s absurd. You shouldn’t feel self-conscious about this, it’s hardly your fault. “But it’s not like it hurts or anything, it’s just. I don’t know. Like I’m in a coma or something and waking up every so often, if that’s easier to think about.”

“….I _guess_ that helps,” he says, grudging.

“Anyway, what are you doing here?” You throw the question at him, lightning quick, and drift a little closer. He looks real, solid. Alive, you think, but only in the way that he’s more vibrant than anything here.

“Is it dumb to say I don’t know? Because, jeez. I really don’t.” He sighs out the words more than says them, and looks over at you. Really looks at you. You have shades on, but you still can’t meet his gaze. You aren’t skittish by nature, but there’s something in his eyes that flays you right to the bone, a kind of loneliness that you know and recognize. And a kind of futility, as well. “Like. We won, right? It’s over. Except I have this powers and they just, bring me around sometimes when I fall asleep, like a _way_ worse version of the dreambubbles. If those are even still a thing. I don’t think they are- at least, not for us.”

“Huh,” you say, and you take a few seconds to really mull that over. “So, you’re worrying that you being able to do that means that things aren’t over?”

“No. Yes,” he corrects himself, frowning. “No. Not really. I don’t think these have anything to do with that. They’re just, um, coincidental?”

“You’re talking to someone who doesn’t believe in coincidences, buddy,” you tell him. “But I’ll take your word for it, because seriously, I have no idea what sort of OP, deus ex, ass pull you have going on there.”

“You know, I’ve never really heard of it described that way, but you’re so right?” he says, and you see a sliver of white teeth as he smiles. He’s got buck teeth, and you knew that already, but you know it on different faces that aren’t as worn, that don’t get sad like this so much as they get cynical, or blindingly optimistic. “Like, if I was watching something and this happened, I’d say wow, what the fuck is that?”

“Sounds like lazy writing, unless a proper meta-narrative had been established,” you agree, comfortably. “Which, I s’pose would be the Scratch, wouldn’t it. The existence of other timelines, the whole- Ring, deal, too. I don’t think you can complain too much.”

“Okay, but consider this, random Dirk,” he says, waggling a finger at you. Really, waggling a finger at you. This hasn’t happened before, across this existence of yours, and you think it’s a rare occurrence in many of the others, too. You resist the childish, impetuous urge to bite it. “I want to complain. In fact, I want to use these powers to go send a strongly worded letter to GameBro telling them hello, this is John Egbert, and I have some really bad news about that game you’re selling!”

“And you’d like to talk to their manager,” you suggest, a smile threatening to tug at your mouth despite yourself. “Don’t forget that, bro. You gotta complain all the way up that bureaucratic chain. Better do it via phone, dude. They’ll just ignore the letters.”

“Better yet, I should show up in person. In a suit or something, so I look official,” he snickers. “Or- no, no. Better yet, just in my godtier stuff. They’ll have to take me real serious in a blue hood a mile long and what’s basically glorified pajamas.”

“Shit, man, I forgot yours is actually kind of cool. I’m just out here rocking Henry VIII couture and wishing I’d shaved my legs,” you say mournfully, and look down at the white tights you’re rocking. “Well, at least the glitching hides that.”

He also looks down at the white tights, and after a second says, “I guess it also has to be the kind of thing I’d need to be closer to see?”

Huh. You don’t think that’s a come on. At least, not deliberately so.

(You still wonder what relationship he and the real Dirk must have, and then an echoing part of you answers with the knowledge that there isn’t one, not really.)

“You can, if you want,” you say, and the old habit of flirtation is bubbling up despite yourself- despite the fact that this you is still flayed raw and wrong by the memories of a very recent breakup with Jake English, even though you know he’s dead and gone and you’ve mourned him as best you’re able to when you’re in these flashes of consciousness.

(They come less and less often, now, but it’s hard to keep an accurate track of that. This bothers you more than you would like to admit.)

“What, come closer and stare at your legs?”

“I stick my leggy out real far,” you deadpan at him, only to be met by a look that’s extremely confused, and- oddly fond.

“Oh, yeah,” he tells you, with his full lips twisting up into a little smile. You don’t know if it’s bitter or self-deprecating, or genuinely amused- or a mixture of the two, and you run through the repertoire of Human Facial Expressions you have in your head, collated from movies and grainy video chats and finally stunning Real Life HD that you wish you’d paid more attention to. You’ve never seen this expression on Jake or Jane, but maybe something close on Roxy, when she talked about her Mom. “You’re definitely related to Dave.”

Any retort you might have had withers and dies in your throat. Out of everything he could have said, you didn’t expect _that_. You didn’t expect it to cut you right down to where your heart should be.

(You don’t expect a dozen little memories that aren’t yours to filter in through the haze of perception and Void, glitchy but you treasure them anyway, drink them in greedily never mind that they belong to a Dirk that isn’t you. You package them neatly- the ghost of an awkward hug, a face pressed into your shoulder and shades digging into your neck, a shared nod and the knowledge that you’re doing what has to be done right before a sword slices through you and he’s close enough you think you can see tears in his eyes through shades, walls and walls of red text because Dave talks so much more than you sometimes and it settles something in you to just listen to him ramble. Fistbumps and quiet, quiet moments outside- and not so quiet moments, when Karkat’s there too. And something like a vice grip around your chest when you realize that you can’t recall any physicality to this- the hug is the memory of one, you don’t know what arms around you feel like anymore. You don’t remember what his voice sounds like because you don’t know. You barely remember color. You don’t remember the sun and its warmth against your skin anywhere near as clearly as you do the insistent, cutting press of a gas mask to the planes of your face.)

“…Dirk?” John says, and jolts you right out of that. It’s the first time that he’s said your name out loud- that anyone has here, in a long time, and the rightness of it jolts through you. You feel more solid now, you think. Or maybe that’s a placebo effect, wishful thinking. Unstuck in the narrative he may be, conceptually, but you aren’t a part of that particular narrative anymore, and he doesn’t have the sort of sheer fucking _belief_ that would make you real and stick you together permanently.

“Yeah?” you ask, a beat too late. You’re off-kilter, not quite spiralling but something close, and for a moment you _hate_ that other Dirk who dares to saddle you with not-your memories, and you _hate_ John for coming here and letting it happen, and you _hate_ yourself for feeling any of that. It’s not any of their faults.

“Sort of spaced out there,” he tells you. There’s something uncomfortable about his voice.

“Oh, sorry. Just thinking,” you say. “Partially about Dave, I guess? I didn’t- I haven’t met him. I know he’s dead,” you add, and even just saying it makes that grip around your chest tighten. “But everyone here is.”

“Do….you want me to tell you about him?”

You try not to trip over yourself when you answer yes, but you think that your eagerness is obvious, anyway. “Not just him, though,” you add, in what you know is a lame attempt at a save. Smoothness, thy name sure as hell ain’t Strider. “Everyone. Jane, and Jake, and Roxy. And you, too. And Roxy’s Mom- well. I guess that’s Rose. And Jake’s grandma. Don’t really get the news out here, man, I think the postman’s scared to deliver the paper and reception is such shit you wouldn’t believe.”

“Ha, yeah, I can imagine that,” John says, and wow, did you just make this dork smile with a terrible joke to cover your embarrassing desperation to know anything at all about your friends? You’re still unsure of how he became a comedian in another life, but you will admit that he has a nice smile, even if it’s sad around the edges. You’ll only admit it to yourself, though. “O…kay. So I know you have your whole- Dave is your Bro but not really thing and honestly, man, I feel like your Bro got hyped up to be really cool in your head but Dave’s just a huge dork.”

“I think that as his best friend you’re legally obligated to say that,” you say on autopilot, but you’re still blinking away the images that don’t fit into your own memories.

(They _are_ , though. The pieces are right, the puzzle itself is wrong. You’re very vaguely aware of the sensation of fabric dragging against skin, and it’s overwhelming for a single excruciating second.)

“W-ell.” John’s face does something sad and complicated again, and wow, you can’t get over how fucking expressive this guy is, or the way he puts his whole face and a decent chunk of his body into it. Or maybe everyone you came into contact with had a fucked up version of normal human body language, which- well. Is a possibility given your respective upbringings. “Yes? Kind of, I guess. Historically, I am! But that’s not important,” he tacks on, quick as anything before you can try to parse through that. “How did you know we were? I don’t- think I ever told you. We didn’t even talk that much the first time we met!“

“I- hm.” You pause, cut yourself off from answering. “That’s an excellent point.”

“Aaaaand?”

“And I don’t have an answer?” you snap back, more frustrated than you mean to. “No, sorry. That was- shitty of me to do. But I don’t have an answer, I just- know. Chalk it down to shitty Heart powers, I guess. Some Dirk, somewhere knows that, so I know it too, a little, except I don’t know which Dirk or which where.”

“Oh. That makes sense,” John says, except he’s- smiling, for some reason?

“Okay, man, I know you’re weird as fuck, but you sound happy about that for some reason.” You narrow your eyes at him as you speak, like he can see them behind your shades at all. You don’t even know what color they are, or how visible they’d be, if you took them off. Would they be the same brilliant orange you used to see in the mirror? Filmed over blank white like the ghosts in the dreambubbles? Or just unseeing holes filled with the Void that’s all around you? You have to suppress a shudder at the thought. It’s a good thing your shades remain on, you decide.

“I’m not, I just- it’s good to know that not everyone has all the answers for their powers, I guess,” he says, with a shrug. “Also, it’s a _lot_ less weird than any other explanation of why you’d have known that. Like- what if you were psychic? Wouldn’t that be fucked up?”

“I’ve literally never thought I was psychic, not once in my entire life,” you tell him, entirely serious. “But if weird godtier shit is a good explanation for you, go off, my dude. I’d personally rather know for sure what the fuck is going on, but that’s my best guess for now.”

“It’s a pretty good guess,” he says, slumping a little. “I guess you have a pretty good grasp on them, after all.”

“I mean, yeah,” you say, somewhat bemused. “I had a lot of it explained to me before the Game, though, and while those predictions weren’t a hundred percent accurate, I do have a good grasp on what I can and can’t do. And really, weird alternate self shit is my entire thing. The meat and potatoes of my existence at this point, tenuous as it is.”

“But,” you add quickly and try to smooth over that, “we were talking about how things are for you. C’mon, man, don’t spare the details. I’m bored as _shit_ over here, you have no idea. Break me the news in those dulcet tones of yours, bro, my ears are but the instruments to receive thy word.”

“Right. Right, you wanted to hear about Dave,” he says, in the way that you associate with _stalling_. You raise an eyebrow so he knows you’re unimpressed with it, because you suspect he’d have trouble telling from your normal expression (or lack thereof), no matter if he’s friends with a version of the man it’s based after.

“And everything else,” you prompt. “I want- I’m curious to know what it’s like. You get a whole new world after the Game, right?”

“Yeah. We call it Earth C. Seeing as- jeez, it’s kind of dumb to name it that given that only some of us really know about the Earths A and B, but that’s what we ended up with.”

“You’re going to give all the sapient species there some kind of existential crisis about that, if you haven’t already,” you observe. “The existence of an Earth _C_ does imply existence of Earths A and B, and then D through Z. Like a Long Earth scenario, or a series of recurring Earths instead.”

“Dirk, I have no idea what a Long Earth scenario is,” he tells you, and you pretty much all of the sentence because that’s someone saying your name, out loud, again, and how did you not know that was a thing for you in the past? “But look, we didn’t really think that hard about it, and it just sort of…stuck.”

“And I’m guessing you’re not exactly keeping your finger on the beating pulse of the philosophical schools of thought about it,” you sigh.

“Uh, no. Because I don’t really…care?” he hazards, and wow, is this guy giving _you_ the unimpressed look? That seems unfair. “I already know why it’s called Earth C, I don’t exactly need to spend ages wondering about it. And they get- uh. Weird, about the Creators. We’re gods there, and it’s. Hm. Strange?”

“Godtiering was always going to make things strange,” you shrug. You’re less interested in that detail than the rest. “But go on, I guess. Why do you find it strange, specifically? Not too into the idea of being worshipped and praised? Do y’all have whole temples and shrines?”

“No! No- we don’t,” he tells you. “We get holidays and festivals, though, and. Well, it’s kind of hard to pray to someone who’s sort of right there, I guess? So it’s more like we’re all celebrities with different levels of notoriety and stuff, depending on how hard we encourage it. Like. Rose has her whole Seer, mother thing because she and Kanaya help out a lot in the caverns, but that doesn’t really translate to big fame outside of the Troll Kingdom, and- oh, man. I’m going to have to explain all the kingdom stuff, too, aren’t I?”

“That would be helpful, because I’m surprised you’d have gone back to a monarchy that way,” you observe, mild. “Given the whole Empress deal, last time. There _are_ trolls with you who remember her, and Alternia, aren’t there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, uh. That’s Kanaya and Karkat and Terezi, and yes, I know you haven’t really met them, but the kingdom thing is really just…a name and geography? I don’t think there’s actually any real rulers, although some of us have honorary titles, I guess. But that’s mostly because we’re the Creators and we live there. Although Rose and Kanaya, and Karkat, are pretty involved in the Troll Kingdom too, in really different ways? But they’re not rulers or anything,” he says, and you nod, slowly. Half of that made sense. Rose is Roxy’s mom. Kanaya and Karkat are trolls.

(Kanaya and Karkat are also dating your ecto-children, part of you says, and you nearly startle as memories of a sugar-crush-rush wedding flood in. It had been an- interesting time. Less awful than the concrete solidity of a shared memory, of candy fuckin’ mayhem and babytalk.)

“Okay. I guess I can refrain from grilling you about politics and whatnot,” you tell him, and it’s honestly kind of adorable how he just heaves out a sigh in relief. It’s exaggerated, but you don’t think by very much.

“Good! Because politics sucks,” he says earnestly, and yeah, you believe that he believes it. This guy doesn’t give a shit about that kind of thing, and you respect that in your own way. It’s just more difficult for you to be _a_ political when it comes to this, because it’s fascinating to think you could see all of that in real time, as opposed to with hindsight. The differences in perspective are interesting. Would be interesting. God.

“Not arguing with you there,” you tell him, and you get a smile with honest-to-God dimples for your trouble. Jake, you know, doesn’t have those. Jane does, although she’s never smiled with her whole face as hard as this guy’s doing.

“Good! Now. The- post-Game life, right? Dave.” You take a second to wonder if you’re that transparent. “No, like. You two are real close. Or, the you that’s there is very close to the him that’s there and there’s a lot of weird emotional bro stuff that goes on behind closed doors that I’m _sure_ both of you would deny all the time, but. You hang out together and he likes spending time with you. And Roxy takes a lot of bad, sneaky pictures of the two of you and puts them on her Snapchat, so. It’s kind of easy to see.”

That- yeah.

That’s real fucking good to hear, and you know your expression has softened slightly. You wish it could be you, but pathetic as it is, you’ll take the secondhand memories as they filter through, because it is _a_ you. It’s the Dirk that won, and that- hm. You don’t know the details about that one, come to think of it. Not really.

“Hey. Invasive question, here, broseph,” you start, and he narrows his eyes at you a little. Suspicious bastard. You wouldn’t have expected it, but it’s kind of funny to see. “Can you like, drop the deets on how you won? Beyond, y’know. Whatever weird reality bending you personally pulled you achieve it like the hottest JoJo protag around.”

“Wow, I understood only half of that last sentence,” he says, completely deadpan, and, okay. You can appreciate that, too. He pulls off sarcasm better than you’d have expected. “But, I mean. It was really a whole thing? I had to go back and adjust a bunch of things, and then there were like a bunch of separate fights that had the total effect of us winning but going into the complicated ones gives me a headache so I’m just going to do the ones you and I were in.” You think that’s fair enough, so you nod a little, even if you want more details.

(There’s an echo of Dirk and Dirk and Dirk and Dirk flinging yourself against a hulking green monster that used to be your friend because you’re dead already what more do you have to lose? There’s an echo of Dirk flinging yourself against a smaller version of that monster and taking all its blows because someone has to, because you’re tough and you can do it, because you’re not going to let anyone else get hurt.)

“One against the weird, dog-Jack hybrid and its…Jack-Lord English hybrid. You were in that one, with Dave and Terezi. You died, but, it didn’t stick since Jane brought you back. They don’t really talk about it that much. Uh, Roxy killed the Condesce, that’s another and a big thing I think you’d be into. It was impressive. Very ninja-like,” he concludes, nodding to himself very firmly even if he looks a little bit green about it. You don’t judge him for that. He doesn’t look like a killer, even though the Game probably did its fucking best to turn him into one. He’s also alive, even though the Game definitely did its fucking best to kill him, just like it had all of you. You’re glad it didn’t work for everyone. You…maybe wish it’d worked for you, but in a cosmic sense, it’s probably having a goddamn laughing fit wherever it is at the sheer irony of your current situation.

Whatever. Roxy’s badass, and she killed the fucking Batterwitch, and you don’t think that was any plan of the Game’s. She carried on the legacy of her Mom and your Bro better than you ever could, and sure, it stings like hell but right now? Right now, you’re so proud of her you could fucking _burst_ , and it feels like you’re coming a little more into focus, now.

“She’s a badass,” you say, and you don’t bother to try and keep any of that out of your voice. It won’t work. “And she’s- doing okay, now? Right?”

“Yeah. She is,” he assures you. “She and Callie are- you know who Callie is, right?”

“I sure do. They an item?”

“Yes. The biggest item. I think Jane’s sort of part of that but not really? She’s kind of busy with, uh. CrockerCorp stuff.”

You don’t freeze, because you’re better than that, but it does quell a whole lot of that excitement from before. Your lips may turn slightly downwards in a frown.

“It’s, more of a reformed CrockerCorp thing?” he tries, and. You’re not _not_ buying it, per se, but. You don’t like it. “Yeah, I know. It’s weird, like. They ended the world, right? For you and Roxy? And honestly all that corporate stuff is such bull, like. Why did we end up having capitalism again? I don’t know but I do think it sucks.”

“You’re not wrong, there. How about I just take that one with a grain of salt, and you watch out for world-takeover via baked goods?” you finally say, only half-joking.

“Well. The Dirk on Earth C can be as paranoid as he wants to about that, but I think he’s okay with it. If that helps, I mean,” he tells you, and god, he’s so fucking earnest it almost hurts. You almost hate that Dirk-on-Earth-C because why can’t that be you, why can’t you be the real fucking Dirk for once in your life, why do you have to stay in the Void and let it eat away at who and what you are, why does he get friends and family and a happy ending and you- don’t?

You voice none of that, though, and just let out a slow breath. You know why.

You failed, that’s why.

“Yeah,” you finally say. “I guess it does.”

You must not sound very convincing, because he’s frowning now, and you don’t think you’ve ever been frowned at in quite this way. It’s the same expression he had when you last saw him. Sad. He opens his mouth to say something that’s no doubt doing to be generous and as sweet as he can make it, and likely painfully fucking awkward.

“Don’t- you don’t need to pity me, man,” you tell him before he can get a single word out, and your voice doesn’t shake at all. “There’s thousands of dead Dirks out there, I’m just one of them. I don’t need you feeling bad for me or anything. I mean, I know it’s pathetic to be begging for whatever scraps of information you’ve got, don’t get me wrong, but-,”

“No!” He cuts you off, too quick, and flushes a little in embarrassment. You blink over at him. You strongly suspect he’s lying for your benefit. “It’s not pathetic. I mean, okay, maybe it is to some people? But. It’d be so much weirder if you were just here and not asking me anything about that. Like, why wouldn’t you want to know, right? _I’d_ want to know what was going on, I guess. Although, I guess I also would have just wanted to talk to someone if I was in your place?” He laughs, a little awkward, and looks away.

You feel…a little less shitty about grilling him, now. About just wanting to keep him talking for the sake of hearing another person’s voice, for just seeing someone else, for _not being alone_. You know how to be alone and you know how to bear it, but you’ve always had someone on the other side of a screen to talk to. Not here.

“Yeah. That makes sense too,” you say instead. “It’s. Not all that interesting around here, bro, I’m not gonna lie. Sweet fuck all’s happening.”

He looks around, and nods slowly.

“Can I like, be honest here?” he asks. Hesitant, but you don’t know why.

“Are you implying that you were lying to me before?” you answer, because you’re an asshole and can’t help it.

“You caught me!” he says, lifting his hands so his palms are facing you. “It’s not Earth C and in fact I am not even human but a giant purple monster with glittery fur and scales.”

“Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t want to see your true giant purple monster form,” you tell him, because you’re above smiling at such a shitty joke. Still. You’re glad to see a little tension drain from his shoulders. That’s good- you want to repay him for the conversation, after all. You have to stay here, he doesn’t.

“I thought Dave was _kidding_ about all that furry stuff,” he grumbles.

“Nope. All true, although you can heave out a sigh of relief, Egbert,” you inform him. “My highest appreciation’s reserved for the equine form and dappled, heaving flanks with nicely braided manes. Your glitter fur and scales just don’t make the cut, I’m afraid. It’d be a curiosity thing only.”

“Wow, way to offend my fursona,” he says, all mock hurt. But his face shifts into a more serious expression, more wistful, you think. “But. I was being honest before, anyway, and I’m going to be more honest now. Are you ready for this?”

“Hell yeah I am,” you say, fully confident. “Lay it on me.”

“It’s just. Nice talking to you,” he says, all in a rush, like that’s some kind of weird, shameful secret. You don’t really think you’re that shitty a conversationalist, even if you’re not the most considerate one.

“Thanks?” It comes out as more of a question than anything else. You decide that you need to be sincere, too, even if he’s got you dead to rights already. “It’s nice talking to you, too.”

“Yeah?” he asks, and what the fuck is this guy doing, sounding so tentative and sincere about it? Are you really fucking shitty to him on Earth C or something? You’ll kick that Dirk’s ass if you have to.

(You’re not, comes the distant thrum of knowledge. You just don’t see him very often, and you’ve rarely talked alone.)

Oh. Well, the sentiment stands.

“Yeah,” you confirm, and you make sure you sound as confident as humanly possible about it. The kind of confidence you used to put up for Jake when you needed him to grow a fucking pair and do something for once (and sometimes just because you couldn’t really shoot him down), so he knew you were entirely certain about something. Except, then it was usually a front. Yeah, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Yeah, I’m sure we’ll make it out of this. Yeah, I’m sure Neytiri would fall all over you if she existed. That’s the one where you didn’t want to shoot him down too hard.

This is different. You mean it, more than you’re comfortable with him knowing. But that’s alright; you don’t really think he’d _get_ it, and then he’d pity you all over again. You don’t want to deal with that.

“Okay. Cool.” He nods a little to himself, and wow, you really are good at sounding dead certain about things, aren’t you? “I know it’s a weird thing to say, because the Dirk on Earth C and I don’t really talk that much-,” memory was right, on that count, “-but also because, uh. I’m not really meant to be here, I think.”

“Well. Not to say that I know how your weird shit works, but given that you _are_ here. I think that on some level, you either _believe_ you need to be here, or you want to be here.” Your words sit heavy in the space between you, and you can watch them settle onto his back, his shoulders curving inwards a little with the weight of them. Shit. You need to watch your mouth.

“No offense, but…I don’t really think the Void from a doomed timeline would’ve been my first choice if I could choose where I wanted to go,” he says, and look at that, he’s got some spine to him.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” you nod. You’re good at rolling with the punches. And, of course, he’s absolutely right. Who the _fuck_ would want to be here? You don’t even want to be here. You want to be done, you want to be gone, you want to _be_ and be someone that’s not here-

(And oh, but doesn’t a not insignificant part of you just recoil and flinch at that? Your head aches, you can _feel_ it now, that split shifting, the splinter, except you don’t know if it’s a splinter or a passenger or what, because it’s _you_ , your own attention, something shifting back into focus in the recesses of your mind, and you suddenly just _know_ yourself, an awareness realigning. Waiting, watching- )

“Like, no offense, but! It’s shitty here. And it doesn’t really look like I need to be here? I mean. I was here before. Unless you think it’s something to do with you?” he asks, almost desperately hopeful, and that’s enough to jolt you (all of you) back into awareness.

(That suddenly settled part whispers _what the fuck is he doing here_ , and- yeah. You wish you had an answer to that, buddy, and the wry amusement to that thought belongs to Dirk entire.)

“I don’t think so, my dude. I haven’t been sending out any distress calls through the Void like the world’s shittiest rigged bat-signal. Or Eg-bat signal, in this case,” you say, and you know your deadpan delivery is perfect because it takes him a second to get the joke, his mouth opening in a little ‘o’, before he honest to god giggles. What the fuck. At least a groan would’ve been acceptable.

“That was _awful_ ,” he tells you, and you’ll take that token protest over nothing. It takes him a moment or two to settle down, and a few deep breaths too, like he’s not used to laughing and has forgotten how it goes.

You’d say ‘same hat, bro’, except you make conscious choices not to laugh because your stoicism is a whole thing you need to maintain, especially now that you have company. You can’t exactly break out the good china or anything out here.

“Yet another example of your inability to grasp humor,” you say instead.

“God. You and Rose sound so alike sometimes it’s scary,” he sighs out, shaking his head. But he’s sobered some by now, and it settles back around him as he glances your way. Big fucking doe eyes and everything- you almost want to turn your head. Almost, though; you’re too starved for any sort of human being around to even think about seriously considering looking away from him. And that’s just looking.

“Guess she got my genes. Poor Rose,” you quip, shaking your head all faux-mournful.

“Well. Maybe. She didn’t get the horse thing, so that’s probably good,” John says, apparently totally serious.

(You don’t even remember talking to him about any horse thing, which means that your level of horse furry-hood is fucking astronomical. Over 9000, baby.)

“I think that’s the best part of my personality, actually,” you say.

“Dude,” he looks at you again, and shakes his head. “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, no offense. Well, maybe offense.”

“Bro, I’m some weird Void ghost whose existence is dependent on forces I have no idea about.” Wow, that sounds even worse. Who are you kidding, there’s no nice way to frame it. “Well. Actually,” you pause, and then glance at him. This is the second time you’ve seen him ever, and the most aware you’ve been, your…passenger self aside. “Do you think you have something to do with why I’m all corporeal? And relatively non-glitchy?”

“Huh.” He looks like he’s giving that some serious thought, so you wait and mull it over some yourself. You don’t know if it’s the interaction with him that’s making you more _here_ , or if it’s the fact that you’re interacting with someone in general, and that’s concrete proof of your existence as well as enough incentive for you to _be_ here. But you were here before he was, you’re pretty sure.

“No,” John finally says, slow. “I didn’t know you’d be here, actually. I just- wanted to leave.”

“Leave…where?” you ask him, and you raise an eyebrow and everything.

“My room, I guess.” He’s shifting a bit now, obviously uncomfortable. Now that’s interesting. You turn towards him more fully.

“You wanted to get out more, and you came here? This is the opposite of ‘fresh air and sunshine’, bro,” you say. Your tone doesn’t shift much, but it doesn’t need to. You naturally sound skeptical as fuck, and it’s working for you now because you _are_ skeptical as fuck.

“Not like that!” he says, frowning over at you. The discomfort seems to be intensifying, although it’s now paired with what you’re fairly sure is annoyance. That’s alright, you can work with it.

(You’ve never seen him looking annoyed before. He always seemed even-tempered, friendly in a kind of generic way. Huh.)

“Like what, then?” you prompt. You’ve never been able to leave well enough alone, and you aren’t going to start now. And besides- you get the feeling that he wants to talk about this. Or needs to.

There’s still a long moment of silence where he looks increasingly frustrated- either at himself, or you, but you’re used to waiting things out and so you keep quiet and keep looking at him- before he finally heaves out a huge sigh, and a gust of breeze rustles through your hair.

“It’s my birthday,” he says, like you’re supposed to know what that means. You think he parses the blankness in your face as you drawing a blank, rather than your usual expression, since he rolls his eyes a bit. “I don’t like my birthday. We- started the Game on my birthday. A little bit because of my birthday, since I’d gotten the beta version for it, and. Yeah.”

“Oh,” you say. Eloquent. “Yeah. I can see why you wouldn’t want to deal with that.”

“Yeah,” he nods, and the sadness is heavier around his eyes now. John flips over onto his back, so he’s just laying in midair, ankles crossed. “It’s, you know. Whatever. I stopped being into my birthday when I was eight, this just made it a lot worse. I mean, the presents were fine. My dad just went…overboard. Sometimes.”

Your plan to poke and prod at him may have backfired, because he’s actually answered you, somewhat straightforward. And you have absolutely no idea how to deal with it.

“Presents are the best part of birthdays,” you say, a little lamely. God, you’re the worst.

(You’re drawing a blank here, too.)

“They are. But now I just, don’t celebrate on my birthday, and that makes it mostly alright, I guess. I know the whole thing is dumb as fuck, like. I’m a god, I shouldn’t be having this problem, my birthday is probably some kind of a national holiday or something? I don’t know, I avoided checking.” Another gusty sigh- literally. You don’t really smell anything different beyond the illusion of fresh air, so you decide not to worry that this is literally his breath, from his mouth.

It feels…nice. Different, here. A change. Your eyes close for a moment behind your shades.

“That’s fair. It must be- shitty, to see people celebrating you, on a day you specifically hate because you don’t want to celebrate you. They don’t bother you, do they?” you ask, a little curious despite yourself. You cut a glance over at him, but he’s not looking your way, just up at the endless darkness.

“Nah. I mean, I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t want to be bothered? And it’s not like I’ve done anything to make them want to go out of their way to bother me,” he shrugs. “But the celebrating thing is…pretty weird.”

“Is it the celebration that gets you, then? The whole birthday ritual?”

“A little. I mean, I wasn’t kidding when I said my dad went overboard. There was cake all the time, sure, but for my birthday? Oh, man. There was cake out the wazoo. There was a cake big enough for ten of me to fit in. Uh- ten of younger me, that is,” he corrects, glancing down at himself.

“I was going to say,” you tell him. “You’re not exactly tiny.”

“Are you calling me fat?” he asks, in a near-perfect imitation of offense. It falls flat because it’s a little forced, a joke for joking’s sake. You’re much better at misdirection than that, though.

“Nah. Just that you’re built bigger,” you say. “Like. I’m all hells of scrawny, and I think that’s just how I’m going to be forever. You’re not. Well, I figure you could probably eat more, those pants look pretty loose and your shirt’s baggy, but generally speaking, you’re built bigger than me.”

“I think we’re close to the same height,” he tells you. But he’s looking at you now, right at you, and something twists in your chest. You’re not used to people looking at you, but this isn’t uncomfortable in any way.

(He’s just looking, like he sees you. Sees _you_.)

“Well. Maybe not now,” he says, tilting his head a little. “You’re definitely scrawnier than the Dirk I know. Younger, too. His shoulders are, um. A little broader, I think? And he’s definitely filled out more; I remember Jane saying something about cooking lessons and easing into real food and blah blah blah. So that’s probably got something to do with it. Your face is sort of sharper. Gaunter?”

“Shit, man, leave my cheekbones alone. You could cut yourself on them,” you say mildly.

(He does. When was he paying attention to you? Should you have been paying attention to him?)

“I’m just saying! You’re the last person who should be telling me to eat more,” he grumbles. “I should be telling you to figure out how to get food in this place because you need some meat on those bones.”

“I always need meat,” you say, specifically to be obnoxious.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure meat made you really sick the first time you ate it. And might still make you really sick.” He sounds a bit smug about knowing that, and you…have to concede that he’s right.

(You _can_ eat meat now, you want to protest. Just not very much of it.)

“Don’t be obtuse,” you tell him. “Anyway, we were talking about huge-ass cakes, which sound like a terrifying amount of sugar. Don’t think you can get me off the trail, broseph, I’m a persistent motherfucker and don’t you forget it.”

“Wow! I’ll try and keep that in mind for the future, then,” he says, but he doesn’t close up like before. Just withdraws a little, and fiddles with the hem of his shirt. “But. Right. The cake. There was a lot of it, and it was always rigged with these pranks? And okay, objectively my Dad had a really fucking high prankster’s gambit, but I.” He pauses, clears his throat a little. Self-conscious, you think. Sad, maybe. But he’s been sad this whole time; this cuts deeper. “I didn’t appreciate it. Back then. That’s all. Jeez. I know it sounds like every little ‘oh, in retrospect’ thing ever, but. I don’t know. It fucks me up sometimes, is that what you want to hear?”

“Uh. No? I think you’re allowed to be fucked up about it,” you say, uncomfortably. God, this one really has backfired. “I mean, I never really had any birthday celebrations that were…really celebrations, until I was ten or eleven. It was just me, with a little candle and some extra Doritos for the day. It took me a while to get the cake right from the cards I’d gotten, for the alchemiter. It was a whole ordeal. But, y’know. I made a whopping three friends and they all managed to piece together some things. And Jane’s cake is better than the uh, creation I managed to whip up from the card, at least in taste. Aesthetics? Geromy’s soulful face rendered in pixelated frosting just can’t be beat, bro.”

You trail off, and resist the urge to fidget. He’s not saying anything, and while you know you haven’t shared any particularly personal information, it still feels like it. He’s looking at you intently, and you feel like an idiot for comparing him to Jake and Jane earlier, because neither of them can be quite this intense. Definitely not in this way. There’s no judgement or anything, just him looking, and thinking hard about what you’ve said. Fact for a fact. Trauma for a trauma, maybe, but you’ve got paltry offerings.

“No accounting for aesthetic taste,” is what he finally settles on saying, and you scoff. But you’re more pleased about it than you have any right to be, since he looks a little bit more comfortable.

You eye him, and allow yourself to drift a little closer.

“I think you’re judging me based on the current godtier duds I have on, and I’d like to say that I had absolutely no choice about these poofy asshole pants,” you say. He wants levity? You can do that. You, in fact, will be giving the most levity before you make him uncomfortable enough that he decides to go.

“I am one hundred percent judging you based on those pants, dude,” he tells you, with a careless gesture at them. “You look like you got kicked out of the Renaissance faire! For wearing pointy shades and having gel in your hair while trying to do a shitty Henry VIII cosplay.”

“Well, Henry VIII is inaccurate. He did the beheading, all I did was get beheaded,” you inform him. “Repeatedly, apparently. It’s not a bad way to go, although I’d have liked there to be a bit more flair. Guillotine, roaring crowd. Rotten tomatoes and vegetables getting thrown. Gotta maximize production value. Panem et circuses, y’know?”

“Do you ever listen to yourself talk, sometimes?” he asks, abrupt. “Because that’s just- ridiculous. It’s just dying. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, it happens to everyone.”

“Given that I can only die if it’s heroic or just? It would be a big deal,” you tell him. You wonder for a moment if that’s why you’re still here, but- you aren’t dead, or dying. You’re just conditionally in existence, and it bothers you more than you’d like to know that you don’t know what the conditions are.

(Agreed. You don’t know either, although you think it likely has something to do with you and dreaming and splinters, rather than John Egbert and his strange, metaphysical powers. Which apparently hop between timelines.)

“You aren’t dead,” he says, although you suspect he’s really trying to ask. “At least, I don’t think you are.”

“I know that,” you tell him, pointed. “I’d be aware if I was dead, I think.”

“Well, I’m just saying. We’ve been over why I’m here, why can’t I ask why you’re here?” He sounds petulant about it, you think.

“We’ve been over that you’re here because you wanted to get away from your birthday, although I think there’s a deeper reason,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest. “I’m here because the timeline is dead and doomed and corrupted, and I’m all that’s left. That answer’s a lot easier, and therefore a lot less boring.”

“What deeper reason? I already _said_ I don’t like my birthday and I didn’t want to deal with it. If I’m here because I want to be, what’s the big deal about it?” Definitely petulant, definitely upset about it.

“No one _wants_ to be here,” you say. “No one sane, and you’re not a gibbering lunatic, Egbert. You’re here because you want to get away from more than a birthday, or because you want to be totally alone, and, well. There’s no one around here.”

“Except you,” he says.

“Well. Obviously. And don’t you go trying to steal my pad,” you tell him, and even point a finger in his direction for good measure. You could reach out and touch him, you’re only a few feet apart now. You don’t.

“What pad, dude?” he asks, snickering a little.

“This is some primo Void real estate, bro, don’t go shitting on it out of nowhere.”

“ _Ha_ , out of _nowhere_ ,” John snickers, and you have to try hard not to roll your eyes this time around.

“Pun unintended,” you clarify. He’s still laughing a little.

He’s got a nice laugh. Quiet, natural. Unforced.

(You’d like to hear it more.)

“I’m sure. God, you really are just, a huge dork?” he says, and he’s grinning over at you a little now, and that tightness in your chest grows.

“I’m not a dork,” you say, automatically. “Fuck off, Egbert.”

“Nope!” he says, all forced cheer. Ugh. “Well, I probably will at some point, because I have no idea about when I’ll just pop off and out of the Void, but like. At this moment I refuse to fuck anywhere.”

“Can’t believe you’re turning down this primo piece of Strider ass,” you sigh out, and shake your head a little. “No accounting for taste, I guess.”

“No-! I’m not, it isn’t-, _bluh_ ,” he finally groans out, throwing his arms up in a vague, frustrated gesture. You’re more amused than you should be by this whole charade.

“No, no. You’ve gone and insulted my honor, my pride, and my vanity all at once. I’m handsome, sure, but not handsome enough to tempt you, is that it? Is your best friend already dancing with the only pretty girl in the room?” You keep teasing him, of course, because there’s a flush starting to spread across his cheeks now, warm and vibrant and terribly alive. It suits him, although you’re careful not to think particularly hard about that.

(You’ve certainly never seen him blush before, and you think you’d like to see more. Out of curiosity.)

“What? No, there’s no pretty girls in the room. There isn’t even a room! You aren’t even a girl! There’s no dancing!” he says, clearly worked up about this whole thing. “God- I have good taste. I do. So you stop that.”

John levels you with what you think _he_ thinks is an unimpressed, very serious look. It falls terribly flat; your own amusement ratchets up a couple of levels.

“I’ll have to swoon or challenge you to a duel,” you tell him instead, voice even. “Not all at once, the logistics would be complicated. But I’ll do what I must to avenge my honor and reputation.”

He gives you another of those looks, assessing, as he sweeps his eyes right over you from your head down to your green shitty slippers. You try not to squirm under the scrutiny. You have no idea why it is he’s looking at you like that.

(You don’t think he’s looked at you like that before, not really. At least- not that you’ve noticed; you haven’t spoken to John very much, and you think that perhaps it’s time to change that. Dude’s out here in the Void because he doesn’t want to spend his birthday at home- something’s definitely wrong. Granted, you aren’t sure how you’re here exactly, but you don’t think you’re trying to use it as a form of escapism.)

“I could take you,” is what he finally says, before looking away. “Twink.”

What the fuck.

(What the _fuck._ )

It’s so unexpected you almost want to laugh at it. In fact, if it had happened to anyone else, you _would_ laugh. But it’s happening to you, and you’re too busy being shocked and quite frankly offended to laugh.

“I’m not a fucking twink, first of all. Sure, I’m skinny, but twink implies I’ve got a banging ass, emphasis on banging, and a real desperation to get something in it,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him even though he can’t see it through your shades. “Second, you absolutely could not take me. I would whoop your fine ass with my eyes shut.”

“You could not. You’re like, a noodle,” he says, gesturing vaguely at you. He’s sounding all too amused for your liking, to be honest.

“I am not.”

“A noodle with edges, then,” he corrects. The bastard is smirking, isn’t he.

“A noodle with edges and an unbreakable katana,” you inform him, though you don’t actually equip said katana right now.

“I have a giant hammer,” he says, apropos of nothing. “Of the Zillyhoo kind.”

You look at him for a long moment. You know the Zilly weapons ain’t anything to sneer at.

“I also have Fancy Santas, of the Zilly kind,” you say. “Which I’m pretty sure are more powerful than your hammer.”

“I- why do you have weaponized Fancy Santas?” he asks, squinting over at you. “Like. Did you just decide you were going to do that, and then do it? Is it some weird ironic joke or have the Santas been dangerous this whole time, man?”

“A little from column A, a little from column B,” you tell him, just a little smug. “I don’t know the power contained in those Zilly Santas, but I’m not afraid to find out. Just so we’re on the same page.”

“Oh, of course,” he says, as solemn as he can manage. “I’d never want to get on the wrong end of a Zilly Santa. Not that I really know which end is the wrong one? I think they might both be equally bad.”

“You’re probably right,” you say, and you shift to lay down next to him. Well, not directly next to him, you’re still a foot or so away, but there’s something nice and companionable about it.

You lift one arm up, look at your fingers. They’re faintly transparent, if you pay enough attention, and it makes whichever Dirk’s currently hitching a ride in you shudder. You’re past shuddering at this, you think.

(You aren’t. It’s unnerving, your stomach heaves at the thought. You’re disappearing, gone, fading into irrelevant nothingness, and you’re supposed to be at peace with it?

No.

You aren’t.

This is a dream.

No, it’s not a dream, but it isn’t real for you.

This doesn’t help you calm down at all.)

You’re antsier because of it, quiet for a while until John breaks the silence.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, soft. You don’t know what he means, not until he points at your hand, at the wavering of your fingertips.

“No. It doesn’t feel like anything at all,” you confess. “I don’t _like_ it, because who likes dealing with the quite literal horror of nonbeing, but it doesn’t hurt. Granted, I’m not sure my sense of pain or touch or- well, anything, to be honest- is fully intact right now, but that might be a mercy if having it meant I’d be excruciatingly aware of my existence dissolving back into nothingness. That, I imagine, might hurt a bit.”

“I…guess so. It’s a really shitty situation,” he says.

“I already said I don’t want your pity,” you tell him. Sharp, because you don’t. Pity isn’t going to solve anything.

“It’s not pity, jeez. Can’t I just feel bad that you’re in a fucking awful situation?” he asks, and when you look over, he’s frowning now. “I mean. Empathy is kind of normal, you know? And no offense, but your whole deal right now sucks ass.”

“Thanks, I couldn’t tell,” you say, dry.

(It does, though. You don’t want to be here, you don’t want to be the you that’s here anymore.)

Something in your chest clicks out of alignment, jarring, and you rasp out a breath. Fuck.

Your whole hand flickers, now, and John sits up in alarm.

“Hey- are you okay? What was that?” he asks, the words spilling out all in a rush.

“Something. Whatever’s making me here and aware doesn’t want it anymore,” you say, and you know you sound bitter, but you can’t help it. _You_ want to stay, you want to keep talking to him and his empathy even though you know he doesn’t get it. He can’t. But it’s still nice to have some kind of company, some kind of good intention directed towards you, no matter how fucking pathetic it really is in the end. You’re desperate, but you’re past caring about it. Who the fuck’s going to judge you for it, beyond yourself?

“But- can’t you fight it? Can’t you stay?” You think that he looks more distressed than you do, right now, and you sit up as well, raising your eyebrows at him.

“I’m trying,” you say, because you are. Even if you know it’s futile, you are. You don’t want to go. You want this to last. You think about saying it, but his face is threatening to crumple again. He can’t keep you here, you don’t think. His powers- whatever they are- don’t work that way. “I’m waking up,” you say instead, distant. Your awareness splits and wavers- for a second you feel sheets against your skin, fabric that’s sweat-soaked, the distant drone of a white-noise machine you use to fall asleep at night.

~~It’s all so real and you want it so badly it nearly aches, it would ache if you could feel that kind of thing.~~

He’s confused, and you open your mouth to reassure him again, that this is fine, that it doesn’t hurt. Your voice is distorted, something out of a low-budget horror film, and you clear your throat and try again, and again, but nothing comes out the way you want it to.

(No, no, you want to be coherent, you want to be _real_ you want to be fucking out of this place that makes your skin crawl and is trying to eat you alive and make you less and less than you are, make you nothing just like it’s Nothing its Nothing)

Sorry, you mouth instead, and you try not to let your frustration show or be too obvious. He’s freaked out, you don’t want to add more to it. Happy birthday, John, you try to say, and you think he catches part of that one in the shape of your mouth around his name, because he looks like he’s just been hit with a brick to the head. Whoops.

He reaches out a hand towards you and even though you don’t reach out to take it, you don’t move away- you can almost _feel_ it, the heat of another person, the rasp of skin against skin, fingers against yours, and you want it so bad it _hurts_ , and-

(No, nononono get me out of here, get me **out-** )

You wake, **solid and real** , with your alarm blaring in your ears, with one hand lifted off your mattress and fingers extended to grasp nothing but

E m p t Y

air.

* * *

His hand disappears in yours before you can even reach it, not even the ghost of a touch left, gone in stardust and glitched out and you remember what it was like when you were alone here too the first time this had happened- you used to hate being alone, and you want to scream with the frustration of it all and there’s no one left to hear so-

You **DO.**

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell how much more comfortable I am writing Dirk than John lmao
> 
> If you want you can find me on Twitter at qx90814552 until I figure out how to change the damn handle


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